<span itemprop="author">Robert Pearl, MD

Author's posts

Empowering patients: Navigating medical information with AI

An excerpt from ChatGPT, MD: How AI-Empowered Patients & Doctors Can Take Back Control of American Medicine. Imagine a ship at sea, its engine idle. The boat drifts dangerously close to the shoals, a mere hundred yards from land. The captain, feari…

How generative AI will upend the doctor-patient relationship

After decades of “doctor knows best,” the traditional physician-patient relationship is on the verge of a monumental shift. Generative AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, and Microsoft’s Bing are poised to give …

Health care wins, losses, and lessons

Albert Einstein determined that time is relative. And when it comes to health care, five years can be both a long and a short amount of time. In August 2018, I launched the Fixing Healthcare podcast. At the time, the medium felt like the perfect audito…

“System-ness”: the key to successful health care transformation

Value-based health care, the holy grail of American medicine, has three parts: excellent clinical quality, convenient access, and affordability for all. And as with the holy grail of medieval legend, the quest for value-based care has been filled with …

Kaiser-Geisinger vs. Amazon, Walmart, CVS: Who will reign supreme?

For decades, research studies and news stories have concluded the American system is ineffective, too expensive and falling further behind its international peers in important measures of performance: life expectancy, chronic-disease management and inc…

The revolutionary Kaiser-Geisinger deal: How health care giants are reshaping the industry and empowering patients

Health care’s most recent billion-dollar deal took the industry by surprise, leaving medical experts and hospital leaders grappling to comprehend its implications. In case you missed it, California-based Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospital…

Why retail giants will revolutionize American health care

In health care, as in life, people devote a lot of time and attention to the way things should be. They’d be better off focusing on what actually could be. As an example, 57% to 70% of American voters believe our nation “should” adopt…

ChatGPT: How generative AI is revolutionizing health care

Over the past decade, I’ve kept a close eye on the emergence of artificial intelligence in health care. One truth remained constant: Despite all the hype, AI-focused startups and established tech companies alike have failed to move the needle on …

3 shocking health care statistics for 2023

As the New Year begins, a trio of health care statistics cast an intense and unflattering light on a nation in crisis. These figures, all of them unimaginable just a generation ago, set the stage for a financial reckoning in 2023 and beyond. Shocking s…

Health care leadership: Making medicine a team sport

Americans give lip service to the importance of teamwork. But most often, we credit success to individuals. Perhaps nowhere is this “MVP mindset” more apparent than in medicine. The brilliant lone physician — gallantly battling to save a pa…